The terms of public service are the prerogative of the public. Fundamental among those terms; public servants are accountable to the public, and to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, at least for the eight measly hours a day that we have to "trust" them with the control over our power and our resources.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

If you make the trip to the Roundhouse and watch the process first hand, you will come away disappointed and disillusioned. There is a reason these people don't want an incontrovertible record of the process available to the public.

Apparently, even the pitiful accommodations that have been made; audio only, and cameras too few and too distant to be meaningful, are not being done well; listeners complain of incomprehensible and inaudible audio streams.

No one in Santa Fe is willing to defend the secrecy with anything but the most superficial and often nonsensical arguments.

Representative Ben Rodefer started a thread on Democracy for New Mexico arguing in favor of a caucus of Senate and House Democrats. I asked him in that thread, to justify the need for conducting that meeting in secret from stakeholders. I asked his supporters to justify the need for secrecy.

None will respond to the question with a compelling argument.

There may be justifiable needs for secrecy.

But unless they are overriding justifications, they don't trump the people's right to know how their power and their resources are being spent.

This session should have been robustly webcast,just like the last should have been,just like the next should be.

The last was not, this is not, and the next will not, for no reason other than the lack of courage and character necessary to hold themselves honestly accountable to the people for their conduct and competence as politicians and public servants.